


Cosmic Love

by callunavulgari



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9183049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: There’s solid matter under the palm of his hand, a beating pulse, and a heart to go with it. A living person that Rodney thought that they’d lost. He swallows again and finds that, to his mortification, his image of John has gone blurred around the edges.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I did a music meme the other night, to kind of jump-start my writing. The idea was to put my music player on shuffle and write the first thing to come to mind for each song that came on. This one is [Cosmic Love by Florence + the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EIeUlvHAiM).

John finds them as they’re about to step through the Stargate back to earth, their whole lives strapped to their backs, leaving Atlantis abandoned and dark behind them. It's for good this time, supposedly. Earth needs them more than the Pegasus galaxy does, and there isn't a damn thing that any of them can do to stop it.

And there John is, dialing in with the right IDC, his drawling voice played over the speakers. Flabbergasted, they let him through, and there he is.

Rodney doesn’t know why he’d expected any different. John Sheppard, dead. Hah! He supposes that he was the fool in the end, for being dumb enough to believe them.

“Rodney,” John says, gaze curiously empty. He’s wearing strange clothes, at least a month’s worth of stubble on his chin. His gait is different, but then again, it’s been seven years. Maybe Rodney’s memory is just faulty. Maybe he spent so long wishing that he had John back with them that he started remembering him all wrong. That happened, didn’t it? People giving traits to the dead that they’d never truly possessed in real life. Elevating them to hero status in their heads and damn all the shitty things they'd done to get there in the first place.

John would never have considered himself a hero, but Rodney did. Atlantis did.

“John,” he says, dazed, and is, for once, at a complete loss for words. He clears his throat; says John’s name again in a new, wondering sort of way. It’s been so long since he said it. So long that he’d spent avoiding the word, avoiding any mention of the man himself.

Oh no, he thinks, swallowing around the golf ball that’s taken up residence in his larynx.

 _“John_ ,” Rodney breathes, third times the charm, reaching forward and clasping a hand around John’s shoulder. His real, solid shoulder.

Real. Alive. Not dead.

There’s solid matter under the palm of his hand, a beating pulse, and a heart to go with it. A living person that Rodney thought that they’d lost. He swallows again and finds that, to his mortification, his image of John has gone blurred around the edges. Rodney’s cheeks aren’t wet yet, but he knows that it’s a losing battle. All the same, he tries to blink the tears away furiously.

“Hey, hey,” John whispers soothingly, leaning forward and caging Rodney in, two hands settled firmly on his shoulders. The fingers curled at the nape of his neck are familiar, still callused from years of active firearm use. “It’s okay, buddy. I got you.”

Rodney swallows back a stream of furious accusations, fighting off the words as they come to him, because John didn’t have him. He didn’t have him for seven whole years. Seven long years where Rodney thought he’d lost the best friend that he’d ever had. He’d had so much time to think about how he would have said goodbye, if he’d gone on that stupid mission, that now he has now idea how to say hello again.

He bites down on his lip so hard that blood swells to the surface. He can’t resist glancing back at John again, like he’s some sort of green thing that’s been denied the sun for so long that it’s desperate for the light.

The empty expression that John had been sporting before has been wiped clean off his face. The one he’s wearing now isn’t as familiar as Rodney would have liked. John’s always been fond of his masks. Before, it was rare to see him without one. Rodney, being Rodney, was allowed to see it more often than the rest of Atlantis, but it was always a treat, to see John Sheppard at his most vulnerable.

Now, there’s naked emotion all over his face. A soft look, remorse and affection and a strange sort of panic that’s probably his brain trying to come up with a solution to make Rodney stop tearing up like he isn’t going on fifty.

There’s loneliness there too, and Rodney recognizes it because he sees it on his own face in the mirror every day.

He swallows, reaching up to wrap a hand around John’s forearm. There’s a pulse there, sure and steady.

He wants to ask John a million questions. Where he’s been, what he’s been doing, how he survived the attack that Teyla had been so sure had wiped him out. Tomorrow they’re due to leave Atlantis forever, but for now, Rodney would take a dark Atlantis with John Sheppard over the whole sprawling expanse of Earth any day.

For now, he settles on trying for a smile. Says in a watery, faltering sort of voice. “What took you so long?”


End file.
